Criminal Justice News

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Another Defendant Pleads Guilty to Offering Drug Paraphernalia for Sale at Treasure Valley Business

BOISE—United States Attorney Wendy J.
Olson announced today that Thomas Wayne Blumke, 38, of Horseshoe Bend, Idaho,
pled guilty in federal court to one count of offering drug paraphernalia for
sale at Other World Gallery, LLC, a business located at 108 South 11th Street
in Boise. Crystal Blumke, the defendant’s wife, pled guilty to the same charge
on September 5.

Thomas Blumke is scheduled to be
sentenced on December 10, 2012, before Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn
Winmill at the federal courthouse in Boise. His wife will be sentenced on
November 15.

The Blumkes and five others pled guilty
to the charge of offering drug paraphernalia for sale over the past two months
and are awaiting sentencing: Gabriel Adam Busby and Bradley Berquist, co-owners
of Twenty After, on November 1 and November 13, respectively; Yoke Fee Chan,
owner and operator of Royal Smoke, on November 13; Janet Shirley, owner and
operator of All Sunshine, LLC, and Antonio Mendoza, an employee of All
Sunshine, LLC, on November 15; and Adam Daniel Schreiner, owner/operator of
Bernen’s Pipe Shop, LLC, on December 4.

These seven defendants are among the 16
charged last May as part of Operation Not for Human Consumption, which targeted
illegal sales of drug paraphernalia at 13 Treasure Valley businesses.

It is against federal law to sell or
offer for sale any paraphernalia that is primarily intended or designed for
drug use, regardless of whether the seller advises their customers that the
paraphernalia is for tobacco use only. The businesses are commonly referred to
as “headshops.”

Operation Not for Human Consumption
includes the cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Federal
Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE)
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal
Investigation, Boise Police Department, Ada County Sheriff’s Office, Canyon
County Sheriff’s Office, Nampa Police Department, Meridian Police Department,
and the Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office. The U.S. Marshals Service and Idaho
State Police provided assistance in arresting the 16 defendants.